Take the hit
by Keith Koenar
Summary: Little did know that Bob had a brother. A normal brother. Well, that was until he turned out not to be. Read the story of a man who lost everything. Read the story of a man who's only thing left of is the story. Come on and read me like a book.
1. Chapter 1

Hey. My name is Rick. Rick Hodge to be exact. In my early childhood I lived somewhere in Virginia before my parents moved to New York. Of course they took me with them, they wouldn't abandon me. Mom and Dad always had been good parents, spoiling their little boy to no end and possibly avoiding those cheesy family meetings for him. That had been an difficult task, they used to say, but they didn't want my cheeks to be pinched by Aunt Bibs. Believe me, they were right to save me. Aunt Bibs had never been the sensitive type and had once pinched my father's cheek so hard that he still has a heart-shaped scar today. How? Let's say my family always had been... special. Aunt Bibs was stronger than a elephant (and looked like one, too), Dad healed with a simple touch and Mom, she was nicknamed 'Blizzard'on purpose. They were supers. They were, I wasn't. But when I was three and my little brother was born, we all knew he was '_special' _too. I won't lie to you, so believe me that I wasn't jealous when Bibs got to go on vacation at some beach with him . Neither had I been when he lifted me off the ground at the age of three. Or when Dad bought him weights for Christmas (they consisted of two cars, but oh well...).

I didn't care about things like that, all that mattered to me was that he was nice to me. I'm not here to complain about my childhood and how horrible it was because I wasn't super, blah blah blah, because it wasn't, Bob didn't made it horrible, if anything, he made it even more wonderful. He was my little brother, I always was his 'little big bro' and he loved me more than anything else in the world. Not only that, I loved him back. I still remember one night when he had been nine and I thirteen, he just had had a nightmare about the city being destroyed and him being to weak to stop it, he wouldn't stop whining until he was allowed to crawl into my bed. He had been so bulky by then that we barely had enough place on the small mattress. But he managed to get me to cuddle with him and within a minute he was asleep. I couldn't sleep. I thought about **his** nightmare. It must have been horrible to know that one day it could really occur, for a moment I pitied him for being so strong, then I began to wonder how it would be if I had turned out as a super. For the next four years I woke up with the fear something could change.

As you can maybe tell, I was a rather philosophic kid and a worker with special goals, but not really smart. Smarter than Bob, I'm not saying this to make him look bad, but let's be honest: if it weren't for his powers and the immunity coming with it, he would have stayed down a year. He always said 'One day I'll be a hero, I don't need school.' and made his way through middle-school before going to a special high-school for future heroes. There he worked as hard as me for a year. When I was seventeen and he reached the age of fifteen, we were glad to be done with school and applied for college. We figured that since we both graduated from high-school with excellent grades (Bob had been trained for speeches and such) and we could be **the** two Hodges at college, we should both send our applications for The American Institute For Justice together.

In our two weeks of suspenseful waiting, I took myself some time to study my body. Apparently I hadn't been the only one to remark that I wasn't that bad looking. I had a beautiful girlfriend who kept on saying how sexy I was with my muscles, how much she loved my blond hair and- Oh!- how masculine my angular chin was!

But there was someone with more muscles, blond hair and a more angular chin. My fifteen year old brother.

It had been after two hours of exhausting swimming, I silently threw my bag onto our family-couch and sleepily walked to my room. Just before I touched the doorknob, as if I knew something was going on, I leant my ear onto the door and listened closely. I heard _her_ voice.

_"Oh Bob! That was so good!"  
A satisfied chuckle echoed in the room, "Yes, I'm glad you and Rick broke up a few weeks ago..."_

At that point I had heard enough, and as silently as I had come, I had retired to the couch in a certain state of shock. I'm sure you've felt it once. When you just have received a message to big for you mind to handle and you can't feel anything, not even pain, like a protection inside of your head. In my case I hadn't felt my nails dig into my knees. I don't know how long it took Bob to come out of my room with a smug grin, but at that point I was still staring at the ceiling with glistening eyes and he immediately had spotted me. I didn't look at him.

_"We didn't break up."_

These icy words had been my last for the rest of the day. When Melinda finally had come out of my room too, Bob had yelled at her for five minutes in the kitchen before she had run away crying. It had been fine with me, that bitch deserved it.

It had been after the numbness had wore off that I realized that it had been there for protection. I had entered my room, had hidden in it for ten tortuous minutes before I couldn't stand it anymore and grabbed a pillow to expose myself in the living-room, anything was better than staying in the room that smelled of Melinda and Bob. Together. All I did for the remaining two days was sulk on the couch and scream my anger into my pillow.

When the mail from the institute came, my father made me sit at the table with them to assist as Bob wrote that he had been accepted, while our parents congratulated him, I wanted to smile for him, my _baby brother._ But no matter how much I tried, I couldnt' even _fake _an upwards tug at my lips. All my miserable self could do was stare at him with eyes that radiated misery and yet congratulations as well. I'm still glad he had understood and had smiled back, even though he did it with his full lips. Those full lips that were placed on my face too. We were almost the same, so why, why had Melinda wanted him more than me? I couldn't figure it out, so I had watched his every movement. Bob had ripped open the second letter. Bob still had been grinning. Bob had scanned the letter. Bob's happy expression had dropped. Bob had looked at me. Bob's eyes held the look of sympathy and pity. My head hit the table. Finally, I had realized I was the difference. There you had it: my aunt **B**ibs, my brother **B**ob, my mom **B**eatrice, my dad **B**lake and myself, **R**ick. You could even hear the difference in the name. I wasn't a super.

Dad immediately told me he would be able to pay for my college, but that didn't mean he was satisfied. Good, neither was I. Once again I retired into the living room to slowly decay in peace for the next week. When I slept, which I barely did, Mom would come to cover me with her blanket.

Do you remember when I told you I wasn't here to complain about my childhood? And how wonderful it had been? Well, I can't say the rest of my life went like my childhood.


	2. Chapter 2

The past two weeks had been hell for Rick: you could see it in his face as he entered the kitchen. His eyes were bloodshot; underneath, gray-blue skin. In fact, his whole skin had become of that color. I blinked at the shadow of myself in the mirror. Did I just reffered to myself with 'Rick'? Oh god, I must go crazy. I barely could walk to the cupboard, so weak was I. But on the other hand, I was so hungry, not having swallowed anything beside pills and water for three days. And that only because my parents had wanted me to.

Bob watched as I, his older brother, reached up to the cornflakes with my once lean arm. Now it was skinny. With a sigh the teenager opened the yellow fridge to grab a cool milk and set it down beside my bowl on the counter. He leant against it and stared at the ghostly figure pouring cornflakes and milk into the big bowl at the same time. I knew I looked like a ghost.

How old was I? Seventeen? I sure looked a lot older. Bob didn't have to wonder why I was like this, he had figured out he was the reason. With the guilt forming in the pit of his stomach, he crossed his arms and looked away.

I took a spoon and slowly mixed my dinner. "Don't look away all the time... You won't be able to help people that way. Or you'll end up like me one day."

In an awkward silence I brought the spoon to my lips and chewed lethargically. I didn't expect my 'super-brother' to respond at all. I was too tired to listen to him anyway. Too deaf by lack of concentration, too blind by lack of will. I needed to sit down or I would fall over.

"You shouldn't eat because you have to." Bob remarked softly as he helped me to sit down onto the counter.

Grabbing my meal again, I poked the floating food, tried to drown it. "But I have to, duh," I croaked with a voice that seemed unreal and distant.

Bob glared at me.

"You're so immature." he snapped carelessly.

"Ah! How good to hear that..." with a spark of anger giving me force, leant closer and growled, "...from my younger brother."

I retreated immediatly, the force being drenched out of my body, but the fire brooding some more. I was completely immersed in the process of eating when I heard my brother.

"I'm sorry."

The bowl clanked against the white marmor when I dropped it and slammed my hands next to it. The fire had exploded, creating an immense inferno of flames inside of me.

"No, I'm sorry! I'm sorry for you! And you want to know why?" my breathing was uneven, a twisted smile unwillingly played on my lips, "Because you act all mature and wise, but you aren't. You pretend to know the world outside!" I raised his voice even more even though it hurt in my troath, "You pretend to know that there are people out there who want your fucking head! YOU ALWAYS PRETEND!"

When their mother ran into the room, she only saw me, the older son burying his face in his lap and gasping for air.

"Oh my god!" She ran over to me and checked his temperature. "Blake! Rick is burning up!"

What is this? Get me out! OUT!

With a scream of agony, Rick bent back and before someone could react, slid off the counter, violently hitting his head on the edge of the stone. The red blood splattered onto Bob's jeans. When his father came in and tried to place his hand onto his hot forehead, Rick slapped the hand away and curled up with a second blood-curdling scream.

"You have to hold him down!" Blake ordered as his wife scrambled to try to follow his instructions.

Rick trashed around in his mother's strong grip that kept his shoulder-blades onto the cold ground and bent his back.

_Away from the ground!, _a voice inside his head screamed, _It hurts!_

The whole time Bob just stood there and stared at his brother in disbelief as he fought their parents.

"But... I didn't say anything..." he whispered to himself.


	3. Chapter 3

For all I know I had finally snapped, almost killed the doctor who brought me to the nearest hospital, and then suddenly fainted. When I woke up... well, that's a weird story. The first thing I noticed back then is that I had remained on my stomach for the few days I had been out. My mom had told me afterwards not to panic, wich, of coure, made me panic even more. When I finally stood up, she stared at me as if I had transformed into an alien. Then she had called my family on the phone and had told them to come 'see the wonder'.

Was I the wonder? What was wrong about me? I had ran down the corridor of the hospital in the desperate search of some kind of mirror. On the way I had knocked something over _after_ running past it. I didn't get it. When I finally reached a bathroom, I hadn't expected to see some kind of black wings springing out of my back. After a few moments of utter shock, I had examined them closely, spreading them to their full span for the first time.

I looked like a fucking Batman from then on, but it still felt great. I had become one of them, late and sudden, but I had. In the same moment I hoped this wasn't something that I could cope easily enough.

But it had been. My brother and I started working together, we had decided to forget about college (he had never cared much about it anyway) and he immediately showed me how to give a good speech. It always had felt weird when he said: "Don't forget to praise the police!". Those were some of the best times we ever had had together. Sadly they had been some of the last.

Just before we could have gone out for our first mission, Dad had wanted to give me some special training, mostly to find out if I had any more powers. It turned out I did. _Mindreading._ Not as cool as it might sound, believe me. Sometimes it was helpful, others it was disgusting. When I wanted to find out about what we would have for dinner, I would read my dad's mind, then I would tell Mom about it to find out if I would have to go out to eat tonight.

Then there was this midget who suddenly had appeared in our doorway. She had insisted on seeing Goldentouch, my father, and designing a new costume for him. And my mom. When she saw me and my brother she didn't even ask and forthwith took measures for our new costumes without asking. I think the wings and Bob's stature tipped her off that we were supers. "What is your name, dahling," she had asked. I had told her I didn't knew yet. Bob had laughed at that and I had remarked how Mr. Incredible didn't even have a name. Edna had exclaimed that was a perfect name for him. Mr. Incredibly Stupid seemed more accurate to me.

When the suits came (spandex, hell yeah!) Bob and I had the brilliant idea to finally get out of the house and do good deeds, I mostly flew him around and dodged missiles while he would keep a house from collapsing onto hundreths of people. We were The Incredible Two. The newspapers praised us, fangirls would keep on coming to our house (by then I understood the use of a ten-feet-fence) since we didn't have a second personality at first. Important politicans would visit the new attraction in New York City. It was so easy to save the world, I didn't understand it. It was like sitting in a train and travel and travel, too easy to be true. But fun. My brother and I used to do nothing else but party and fight villains. It was our glorious time.

But I hadn't missed the way people looked at me. I wasn't flawless, I scared the little kids on the street, unlike Bob. It had become obvious the public preferred him to me. I can't blame them, I had been only something like his driver. For a while I had kept on ignoring it, but then, one day, there was a newspaper that Dad had placed onto our kitchen table, 'MR INCREDIBLE VS ORGANA', underneath a picture of my brother throwing himself onto a crazy woman standing on a roof. They didn't say how he got up there, neither how he had known what Organa had planned. But what really had shocked me was the interview inside. They didn't wrote those things because he didn't mention them. He didn't even mention me.

'How could I mention you when you don't even have a name?' he had told me that evening. Bullshit. He had known we were The Incredible Two. Neither of us was suposed to have a name, we were a duo. How could that bastard pretend he did all the work? I still want to slap myself at the thought of trusting him back then, _because you couldn't. _He was a smug, slimy bum. In other words, he was an asshole. And proud of it on top of it! I decided I should start off alone, _Mr. Incredible _didn't care at all. But for that I needed a good name.

I didn't even get the chance to name myself at the beginning. There were so much more villains to fight now that _Blizzard_had retired and taken a new identity along with Dad. Mom thought it was time for the new generation, so she cleaned the stage for us. For the next month I remained the unknown saviour of the city, along with Mr. Incredible. For precaution I had developed the skill of constant mindreading and picking out the suspicious people before reporting them. _Yes, _I reported people to the police. At first I hadn't known why, but then there was this dark ball of thoughts creeping its way to the front of my mind. The police had known an incredible loss of attention through my brother, and instead of helping myself with the right information, I had decided to help more people by telling them where to look and how to look.

Although it hadn't really helped to get the old attention back, I had kept on going to the nearest police station to deliver information. Soon, the policemen and woman knew I was to be trusted, they started to respect me and treat me like one of them. The times where I would skulk around in the station had been the best times in many years. I had started talking to people again and they had started to chit-chat with me like with any other colleague. When they stared up into the black sky after a stressing shift and I would sit on top of the roof, we would smile at each other, knowing we shared something that wasn't super but still a little wonderful. In a world full of supers, I needed that. They needed that.

While I'm speaking of wonders, I had met one. A policewoman in the third district, nightshifts. Helen. Or Elastigirl, as I found out soon. Oh yes, that woman was a bombshell, I had longed to see her in spandex. But she just wouldn't grant my wish and had kept on being a normal citizien in my presence, even though she had given several hints before I had blurted out that I could read minds anyway. I still remember how she had twirled her fiery red hair between her fingers and whispered in my ear if I could hear what she was thinking right now. She had thought in pictures. I had gotten out of the commissariat immediately, sweating and dazed, but nothing had ever felt better than this. After a few weeks of teasing she had asked about my name, but not my real one. That's when it had hit me, I still hadn't got a name! Helen had run her fingers across my chest and said I should choose something classic, like Batman.

As much as I had wanted to please her, Batman didn't seem right to me. I was part of the new generation. Hell, I was something new! For a whole day I had spent my time sitting on the roof of our family-house and thinking about all the choices I had. My name could describe my powers or the way I used them, maybe it even describe me? Honestly, I hadn't a clue about super-names at that time, or anything about these god-like people for that matter. Well... I had learned that they looked rididcously good in spandex. And then I had thought about the costumes we wore, how good they reflected ourselves, how much supers cared about them specially... especially when Edna made them.


	4. Chapter 4

It hadn't been my plan to land here. But I was, matter of factly, standing on Edna's lawn without her permission, what didn't particulary made her bodyguard happy.

"Get off the property, sir, you are not allowed to enter it without Edna's aknowledge." the white bodyguard ordered.  
The only reaction he got was a scoff, "You're not the secret service, I don't take orders from you!"

In the next second the man had a gun pointed at me, revealed when I saw Edna peeking at my form through from her window in the second floor before she stalked away. I figured it would take a while with her short legs so I turned to the bodyguard again with an unimpressed look plastered on my face. He just wanted to be mocked, didn't he?

"Oh, a gun, I'm so scared."

Suddenly, the guard was attacked from behind, "Don't try to imphres' a supa with a simple gun! Put that away!", Edna turned to me with a toothy smile and folded her hands,"What ahe you lookin' for, dahling?"

"I just wanted to fulfill my duty as a hero and look after **you**!" I exclaimed exagerated and entered the house, shutting the door after Edna had followed.

"Oh come on dahling! I know you never cared much about being a super!" she protested immediately as she led the way to a mostly blue kitchen. "Tea, dahling?"

"How should you know?" I snapped back as I sat down at a white table, "You've only seen me once."

Edna huffed and turned around with two cups of coffee in her minuscule hands, "Twice my dahling, twice!"

I rolled my eyes. Twice, uhh! Before quietly sipping at my black tea, watching Edna sit one the far opposite side of the table, looking at me with suspicion. What are you waiting for? Say something!

"If you want a new suit, I don't have time for you!", she smiled implicatively, "Or do you suggest something diffehent?"

"As you can tell, I'm not only suggesting something different, I _am_ different.", I glared at Edna because of her hint, "I need a name."

The designer shook her head, "Oh my dahling, I can't help you thehe. You should have a name fhom the day you ahe born!"

_As a kid of two supers!, _she added in her mind.

I absolutely **hated **it when people wanted to discuss about my parents, I didn't even let them think about it. In the matter of seconds, my face crunched up and I violently slammed his cup onto the table.

Private!, a voice in his head hissed fouriously.

"And? I should have had powers from the day I am born too!" I shouted in aggravation before cooly retreating into the chair again and placing my feet onto the table.

I decided not to read Edna's mind, I was sure I wouldn't even understand the midgets way of thinking. Neither I understood when she angrily stomped onto the table and stalked over to me in millions of tiny steps, surprised I quickly removed my feet from the table, but Edna already jumped onto my chest and pointed at me with an accusative finger that I didn't liked at all.

"No one speaks with Edna Mode in that tone young man!-"

"-I'm already twenty-"

"-But you ahe special."

Again she smiled at me, I just looked at her in utter confusion. In the back of my mind something gave me the idea to push her off my chest. In time, she jumped off me and motioned to follow her.

"My dahling, I had expected to see you he'e one day. When I first saw you- Ah!", she squealed in delight, "-the ideas rushed into my head! You, honey, are no super, no no, you-"

She sat down in a chair and grinned.

"-are a fantastic!"

For a moment we were both silent, I grabbed his chin pensively before cocking an eyebrow and twirling a finger in the air.

"Is that good or bad?" I asked confused, earning a slight glare from Edna.

"Dahling! Fantastic is fantastic! When you hea' supeh and fan-"

"HEP!", I made a pause motion with my hands, not wanting Edna to go all crazy about me in the speech she had begun, "Cut the crap. Sooo... Fantastic stands for... A new type of supers, right? The ones with physical alteration, like me."

Edna sighed and turned to her desk to grab a rather thick pad and a pencil to furiously scribble.

"So, dahling, what do people think of you?" she crunched up the first paper and threw it at my head. I guess that was payback for earlier.

"Hm... Good question.", for a moment I pondered, looking for something usable in my memories, "I once saved a little boy from a collapsing building, he thought something along the lines of a light... and darkness in the same time, it was weird."

"Ah, I see, something wei'd... Maybe it was just something _new_?", the designer's face lit up, "Yes! We need something new! You ahen't only dark my friend! That's it! Clashing colors! And... And maybe an emblem? A light you say?"

"Yes,", I nodded and added inwardly, "and darkness."

"When I say a word, say the next thing coming to your mind.", Edna ordered and turned to me again, "Two complementary colors."

"...Red and green."

"Light?"

"Sun."

"Darkness."

"...Black?"

"Angel?"

I gave a sigh and answered without hesitation, "Helen..."

Edna looked at my figure over the brim of her round glasses, then turned away with a smirk.

"Helen happens to mean light, did you know that?" she glanced at me who grinned.

"I had a suspicion about that... But I'm neither light or black." I raised his eyebrows and blew my blond hair out of my face.

"Let's mix it up... A black sun could be your emblem!", she scribbled on her paper and showed Rick the black circle with triangular rays, "Your name could be the same thing: 'Black Sun'."

"No,", I shook my head and frowned disappointed, "it doesn't seem right... Not Black Sun, Black Helen..."

Edna stopped drawing and looked up, "But it's a girl's name..."

"And? You said yourself, I'm 'special'." I retorted with a smirk.

For a moment Edna smiled at me, then she ushered me out with the reason of wanting to be alone while she worked.

"Come back in two days... and from time to time, we could have some tea together." With that she quietly shut the door.

I moved to the middle of the lawn and looked back one last time. I had the glorious feeling that I would have to drink some more tea, even though I didn't especially like it. With the first content smile in years, I took off.


	5. Chapter 5

It felt great to finally have a name, believe me, and I did everything to cope with it, to make it popular among the newspapers. Surprisingly, it had become known rather quickly, thanks to Edna and my dear friends at the police. Somehow everyone stopped describing me as a super and said fantastic instead. I think that had been Edna's work too. What I say now may be weird, but to be honest with you guys, I didn't really liked the attention, because the more the people knew me, the more they seemed to despise me. I could hear it, all these hateful thoughts swirling in their heads, the swirled in my head too. Everytime I had visited Edna and she had mentioned how 'special' I was, my blood had begun to boil.

Even when I had powers, I would still be different from other supers and I couldn't live as a human either. I was a category for myself and I was alone in it, unless I had the plan to genetically modify some humans (although searching in the surrounding of Chernobill was an option too...). "When the first supers were born they felt alone too..." Mom had always told me, but that didn't satisfy me. My fate had been to be born as a human child of two supers and to become a fanstatic. Yippie. Not only that, but once again I had to feel the difference between me and a super.

I have mentioned Helen, haven't I? And I haven't talked about my brother for a while, right? Well, all this has its reasons, because Bob had taken some distance for a while only to prove, once again, that the woman I wanted preferred him. Yes, you heard right, Helen and Bob. Those words flowed past the lips. The first time I had seen them together, I wouldn't have been surprised to see a golden light around them when they first met. They were perfect together. And they knew it. Apparently they had decided to marry after a few months, even though he was barely nineteen. "We'll marry later," he had told me, oh yes, leave me to suffer, asshole. He had seen it all along, the way I had looked at Helen, but he would greet me with that smug grin. "Slime-ball," I had spat into his face, I had enough thoughts in my head, I hadn't needed to hold back my own. Now I can't say I hadn't been jealous of him, but neither I had been angry for loving Helen. Somehow I hadn't resented him for taking such a fine woman for him. I had understood. The thing I hated about it was the way he would rub it in my face.

Every time something like that had happened, my sibling and I didn't really have a serious fight. Occasionally, though, we would insult each other. Sometimes we had one-sided outbursts (he was being a lot more sovereign than me). The thing was that mine were much worse and it didn't escape Bob that they had multiplied the past two years. I usually was calm and silent, but every time he had had the idea to have a talk between brothers, I would only explode like a volcano once again. _BOOM!_ There I was shouting at him. _Fuck you! Bastard! Idiot! Ignorant fucker!_ Yep. That's the way I talked to him. In the end he always had been too proud to respond like a normal brother (I mean shouting back obscenitys). He pretended to understand me, that I was stressed because I wasn't used to be super. I gained my powers three years ago. And I'm a fantastic, shithead.

Of course that hadn't helped, for all my counter-productivebehavior (Oh my god! You're yelling at your brother!), the other heroes would still see me as a beginner, a nighter. You humans think we aren't organised in any way, but that's definitely **not **true. We don't show up somewhere at the right time because we just had the feeling in a few moments was the time to save the world once again. No. That would have been great, but no. The supers placed higher in the hierarchy, our 'Heads' (I always saw them better without it) were always complete assholes and had decided to punish other supers if they had done something bad like forgetting to scrub the floor after having saved the building from burning down or singing at work. Since I didn't really cared a fuck about people's luxury but more about their lives and favorite songs of other minds constantly stuck in my head, I got _punished_. I was at constant night-shift. Still I don't see what was so different about working at night or at day, maybe the constant darkness, the raised criminality, the lacking press (although some considered that as a good thing), the lacking **heroes** or the ungrateful neighbors when you woke them in the middle of the night by breaking into the laboratory of a crazy scientist. _Really, I couldn't see what's supposed to be better when you're a sunner. _My younger colleagues working at night with me had affectionately called them lighters when I had started crushing their cigarette lighters in fear to see me stand alone by the end of the year.

Surprisingly, when the end of the year came, we were all still standing, I was still a nighter and after failing miserably in my love-life (love life, **not** sex-life) and after having drunk too much at a party, I had found out how incredibly good men were in bed (the fact I am one doesn't have anything to do with that... Well, okay, it does). Children, learn now! Number one rule when you're still living at your parents home and reach the age where you're constantly bonking your colleagues: get a fucking apartment. In my case, I had been looking forward to live together with some open students.


End file.
